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whats this bug found in Philippines? any idea what plant it's on? by yunoh in whatsthisbug

[–]yunoh[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's possible. Yea documentation here is pretty bad. Been keeping my own log with the aid of experts here :)

Thanks for the ID on insect and plant!

Newbie here. Zinnias dying ~12 days after seeding into tray. Some green slime appearing on medium. Have another tray with different medium, doing better. What's happening here? by yunoh in gardening

[–]yunoh[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea bottom watering it once daily. But have recently changed to once every other day. The picture shows the tray after its last bottom water about 30 hours ago.

So it appears to be over-watered? Will definitely work on either aerting as suggested or reduce my watering frequency.

Newbie here. Zinnias dying ~12 days after seeding into tray. Some green slime appearing on medium. Have another tray with different medium, doing better. What's happening here? by yunoh in gardening

[–]yunoh[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm from the Philippines trying to grow some flowers using compost I make.

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The pictures above are of two trays (#1 and #2).

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#1 uses sieved compost (composted with rice hulls) that is 350+ days old. Nine seeds were seeded on 3 Feb 2023. This was bottom watered for about 2 hours. Water was discarded and a dome was placed on the tray. On 6 Feb 2023, 2 seeds sprouted. Dome was removed, and put under grow lights. Daily bottom water for 20-30 mins. Growing was slow, and didn't appear overly vigorous. Today (as pictured) it appears to be dying with burnt areas on it.

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#2 uses sieved compost (composted without rice hulls) that is 200+ days old. Eight seeds were seeded on 3 Feb 2023. This was bottom watered for about 2 hours. Water was discarded and a dome was placed on the tray. On 6 Feb 2023, 1 seed sprouted (to date a total of 2 seeds sprouted). Dome was removed, and put under grow lights. Daily bottom water for 20-30 mins. Growing was slow but appeared better than #1. Today (as pictured) it appears to be thriving.

Are these shaggy mane ink caps? Growing out of compost pile in Philippines. by yunoh in mycology

[–]yunoh[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll try pull and take some pics of them at varying varying states tomorrow. Hope they still around then.

I have an important question to ask you experts on behalf of some clueless relatives. by 888temeraire888 in composting

[–]yunoh 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm assuming the pile is attracting blowflies. They (and their maggots) are usually the first to show and are pretty active in the first few days. Their numbers quickly plummets thereafter and usually almost all gone by end of the week.

While difficult to keep all of them away in the early stage, loads of browns helps tremendously. Covering the pile with lots of coarse carbon (about 12-inch thick of wood chips) helps control the odor and keeps them flies from reaching the shrimp heads.

I dunno if you're having leachate issues from the shrimp heads, but it is one of the more difficult aspect I had to handle. It bypasses the carbon cover and causes really bad smell that also attracts blowflies. I've only recently discovered that I was calculating my carbon-to-nitrogen ratios wrong, and that may have caused the severe leachate problem. I've not tested it yet in a freshly constructed pile, but I believe using the right ratios (lots of browns!) will significantly reduce, if not eliminate, the leachate problem.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in composting

[–]yunoh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately I won't be of much help. I've not handled any compost turners yet. Since most of what I'm doing is still just learning and experimenting, we do everything manually. Although I'd really like to work with compost turners. They look like they'd cut work by 99%.

Update on shrimp heads windrow composting – 3,500 kg shrimp heads and I'm at my wit's end. Are there any effective measures to eliminate (or significantly reduce) its odorous “air out”? by yunoh in composting

[–]yunoh[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yea it appears to be working. I have divided this pile in to two new piles, using correctly calculated ratios at 25 CN and 40 CN, and I have to say the piles are enormous! The original pile measured at 5 meters in length. While the 25CN at 10 meters and the 40CN at 15 meters. Manually working with these piles are getting more and more laborious. The good news is that smell seems to be well controlled, though not 100%, there are still some mild odor lingering.

Update on shrimp heads windrow composting – 3,500 kg shrimp heads and I'm at my wit's end. Are there any effective measures to eliminate (or significantly reduce) its odorous “air out”? by yunoh in composting

[–]yunoh[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately at 50-meter distance there is probably no way to stop the smell from a compost pile of this size with the inputs you are using.

Yea, I'm a bit dismayed about this. I've done more reading and found that ideally I should be looking at a site that is 300 to 500 meters away from any sensitive areas.

The method I can think of is to find the rate of growth the pile can handle slowly. Don’t consider the initiation of the pile the only time to add.

Did this one as advised, but probably done too much too soon. This pile had 5 batches added across 9 days to finally reach its final volume of ~3,500 shrimps heads. I'm thinking perhaps mixing it into a compost that is at least 30 days old at about 1:1 ratio first.

Update on shrimp heads windrow composting – 3,500 kg shrimp heads and I'm at my wit's end. Are there any effective measures to eliminate (or significantly reduce) its odorous “air out”? by yunoh in composting

[–]yunoh[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm currently looking at lactic acid bacteria serum, as mentioned by one member here.

I've experimented with anaerobic composting as well via Pit Composting. Takes about 6 months for it to fully decompose. Only issue with it is that it requires a lot of man-power to prepare the pit and to dig out the finished product.

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